A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 2/7/2010 through 2/13/2010.

I went to Costello's Jam and am now 80% of the way to my free sandwich. See?

During one of my turns at the jam I decided to try Foggy Mountain Breakown, which I limped through.

My banjo instructor, David, was there and he declared it "daring" — which I took to mean "Good for you for trying a song that you clearly weren't ready to play."

So at my lesson later in the week, David had me work on Foggy Mountain Breakown using the version from Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo. I can now play the first part pretty well and am working on the second solo, which has a lot of up-the-neck string bending and some tricky pinky work.

Also in the last week:

I'm sure you've been wondering what's with all this TV time. Two answers: Phineas and Ferb. I've been watching episode after episode after episode as the two step-brothers figure out what to do with each day of their summer vacation.

It's a tremendously fun cartoon that brings to mind childhood days when everything was possible. Reminds me a little of the Henry Reed series. It's just too bad that the show has nothing to do with the banjo. Hey, where's Perry?

The "r" is for radiused; my Nechville banjo has a radiused neck. But I've been getting tired of putting the capo on and off the neck so I got a Paige capo which stays on the banjo all the time, resting behind the nut when it's not in use.

And since my banjo has a tunneled fifth string I got the wider Paige guitar capo instead of a Paige banjo capo. The banjo capo only covers four strings and is designed to slide up only as far as the fifth fret, where it runs into the fifth string capo. But on my banjo the fifth string capo is on the headpiece (at the end of a tunnel) so I can side the wider guitar capo way up the neck.

Reason #1: David Bragman hosting. Of course, David (my banjo instructor) hosts the show every first Saturday so that's not really why this show was so good. This show was good because of...

Reason #2: Shorty. I had introduced David and Shorty so I took pride in hearing David interview her about Shorty's Strickly Bluegrass Festival, which is coming up in Peoria on March 4-7, 2010. Shorty made a good case for why you should swing over to Peoria that weekend to enjoy the bands and the jamming that she's arranged. (Discounted rooms are still available at the Stoney Creek Inn.)

Reason #3: Playing along. I decided to do a little playing along with the songs and I did pretty well. Yay me!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

If you see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari at Chicago's Redmoon Theater before its run ends on March 7th (and you should!), be warned that it is a tale based on a horror film and that nightmares could follow.

The plot of Redmoon production is different from the plot of the 1920 film. Of course, the 1920 film took a turn away from the original script when the producer decided to blunt its pacifistic message with an odd framing device. I guess he figured that post-World-War Germany didn't need to hear about the dangers of following an evil maniac's commands. But I digress.

The point is, this is a great production. Just be aware that it's a creepy story told with scary puppets.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

I've been collecting comics since I was in high school but I've never had a pull list before. I've just poked through the comics on the shelf every week, piled up the good ones in a stack and purchased them. So this pull list thing is a big change.

I'll still have the option of poking through shelves, of course. But now that I'm on a pull list, Craig will have pulled my chosen comics each week and will have them waiting for me.

I'll be tuning the pull list over time, but I'll start with an off-the-top-of-my-head list of the comics that I like most right now. So, ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome to the pull list:

That will do for a start. Later I'll draw on other sources like my stack of recent purchases, various podcasts and such. But the above comics are the ones that spring to mind and which I look forward to the most.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 1/24/2010 through 1/30/2010.

It was a busy week of non-banjo things. I did manage to attend David Bragman's lecture, "The Banjo, From Africa to the Suburbs" (which I mentioned previously). He gave a nice history of the American banjo experience.

But the lecture was also notable because I met the writer of one of my favorite songs. Here, I snapped a picture.

Here's how it happened.

Various groups of people were chatting after the performance. I joined a conversation already in progress to find that the people were discussing the song Mammary Glands. Since it was one of my favorite songs from the Dr. Demento Show I told the group how much I liked the song and sang the chorus:

A check-in on the Banjo versus TV project — J.R.'s ongoing plan to spend more time on his banjo than on TV. This post covers 1/17/2010 through 1/23/2010.

I ran across an interesting article, "Improvisation," by Harold Streeter in the June 1979 back issue of The Banjo Newsletter (I'd ordered it up for Jack Hatfield's tablature to Polka on the Banjo.)

Streeter discusses learning a song, improvising and faking.

[T]here is a definite difference between improvising and faking. The word "faking" defines itself well. Meaning simply that the player is not familiar with the song at hand and is therefore not in complete control....

Faking, then, is uncontrolled deviation from the melody, or to put it another way, coming in the front end of a song and hoping you make it out the back end in one piece with a smile on your face.

The capability to improvise upon a song simply means that a player has leared a song well enough in terms of its melody and chord progression that he can either play the melody straight or deviate from it by choice. The point is that the player is in complete control. He can take certain liberties with a song because he chooses to, not because he is unfamiliar with the song, which results in no options at all.

That makes a lot of sense to me. I've encountered a lot of banjo players who eschew tablature and wrote learning of songs in favor of playing along on-the-fly. Which, in Streeter's terms, makes them fakers.

A real improviser, to Streeter, will learn a song well and then riff on it at leisure. I like that idea a lot.

Also in the last week:

I had a lot of fun at a jug band jam in Chicago. As I wrote previously, this is regular event held at 9:00pm on the third Monday of each month at the Grafton Pub and sponsored by the Barehand Jugband. You should join!

I saw Tim Eriksen perform at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I liked his instrumentals (on a bunch of instruments including the banjo) but what really stood out for me was his use of throat singing. It's a technique that I described in December when I wrote about the Tuvan throat singing group Alash. It's interesting to see the same technique used in both American and Tuvan folk singing.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

This will be my third year attending the festival, which is held annually in East Peoria, Illinois. Shorty, the festival's promoter, puts together a great event with as much emphasis on jamming as on performances. (Take that, Chicago Bluegrass & Blues Festival, with your broken promises of jamming!)

The best way to enjoy the festival is to book a room at the Stoney Creek Inn (where Shorty has arranged a festival discount) so you can take advantage of the round-the-clock jamming areas. The lodge itself is a comfortable timber-themed kind of place and the staff is very festival-friendly.